CURRENT MISSION

Find work I love but doesn't consume my life

ABOUT ME

I like to talk about literature, philosophy, life, but what really gets me going is languages. I love learning smatterings and also talking more philosophically about them. It's also important to tell you why I travel. Primarily it is to get to know other people and see the culture, and its exceptions, in particular individuals. I mean that through travel one is able to understand a culture in a way that is completely impossible through its news, movies, literature, or web page. But travel isn't primarily some sort of anthropological project: it is also about getting to know people. People as individuals (like you) who can't be reduced to being a citizen of a particular country. Incidentally, this same understanding is reason that I love learning foreign languages so much.

I know that probably sounds real dry and serious. Sorry. Really it's the opposite: I enjoy languages because they're not dry. Rather, they are tricky (just look at jokes or puns) and come to life only through others. Languages live not in books but in people, of course. Alright, that's enough monologue on my part, maybe we can just turn this into a conversation.

PHILOSOPHY

Our surroundings are a part of who we are so that there is no clearly defined inner and outer world.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

Since I haven't really had proper living arrangements for hosting anyone, my involvement with CS is largely to represent where I come from. Growing up in the southwestern United States gives me a perspective on the US that is not so commonly shared abroad. Of course though, I'm not just my culture. I also like to share who I am as a individual and get to know others. Isn't that the point of couchsurfing? To get to know others and other countries separate from the news and books? To get to know actual people?

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Did some surfing in Belgium and Turkey. Both were awesome experiences

Interests

Literature, philosophy, languages, backpacking, hiking, rock climbing, cooking, baking, art, architecture, photography, linguistics, travel, poetry, dancing (when the mood strikes).

• arts
• culture
• books
• literature
• poetry
• architecture
• photography
• dancing
• cooking
• baking
• news
• movies
• traveling
• hiking
• backpacking
• surfing
• rock climbing
• languages

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: Rilke, Flaubert, Proust, Billy Collins, Philip Levine, Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, Paolo Freire, Plato, "Don Quixote", Dostoevsky, Pascal, Husserl, Hume, Derrida, Austen, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus
yeah, I read a lot of classics. But I'm not pretentious ;)

Movies: The Usual Suspects, Gloomy Sunday (Trauriger Sonntag), Paris Je t'aime, Kieslowski, Before Sunrise/Sunset, and some Hindi films

Music: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Anonymous 4, Dvořák, Rachmaninov, Bartók, Satie, Chopin, Aesop Rock, Sage Francis, the earlier Atmosphere, Immortal Technique, Brother Ali, The Fugees, Fettes Brot, Jack Johnson, Rilo Kiley, Stars, Nick Drake, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and Hindi music

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I'm not sure what 'amazing' means. The geese I saw by the river while taking a walk the other morning were certainly amazing. And so are the monasteries standing proudly on natural stone pillars in Meteora, Greece. So really I don't know what to say...

Teach, Learn, Share

I can teach some cooking or baking. Teach some thoughts about language. Maybe introduce you to some English poets (probably mostly american ones)

I really enjoy cooking and baking and languages. So if you want to share any of these with me, I would be quite happy.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Turkey

Countries I’ve Lived In

Germany, Greece, United States

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